At teacher's disciplinary hearing, former students describe being made to play 'strip basketball'

Martina Cain, a teacher who is accused of holding strip basketball drills with a team she coached in La Ronge in the 1980s covers her face as she leaves the Saskatchewan Professional Teachers Regulatory Board office in Regina. TROY FLEECE / Regina Leader-Post

Martina Cain’s former student wept as she described a game of strip basketball from three decades ago.

In Strip 21, the girls’ basketball team took turns throwing foul shots. For every miss, they were required to remove an article of clothing, as allegedly instructed by Cain, their coach.

“I remember some of their faces and they were just horrified that they had to do it,” said Student A, whom Cain coached in La Ronge in the 1980s.

The witnesses’ names are being withheld to protect their privacy.

Cain recently worked as principal of Churchill Community High School in La Ronge, where she also taught between Jan. 1, 1986, and June 30, 1989.

Cain is charged with professional misconduct between those dates, when Student A was in Grades 9 through 11.

Tuesday, Day 1 of the Saskatchewan Professional Teachers’ Regulatory Board hearing, saw four former basketball players testify, as well as A’s mother.

Cain is scheduled to testify Wednesday morning in Regina. Her teaching status is listed as retired.

The charges are based on four allegations by Student A: that Cain shared her bed with the student about 18 times, instructed her to steal a tray from A&W, told her to remove her bathing suit in a private hot tub, and led her team in a strip basketball drill.

Student A complained to the teachers’ regulatory board in March 2016, and said she reported the incidents to the RCMP in 2013.

Cain presented this as “a game that everybody played,” the second witness said, and the girls played it a couple of times each season.

A mediocre athlete, Student B has a vivid memory of sitting on the gym floor, removing a sock and “wondering what I was going to do next.”

As an adult, she “horrified” teachers and former players with mention of the game. “I realized that I had misled myself into thinking that this was just something that people did.”

Student C, A’s younger sister, had a similar belief: “She’s the teacher. Maybe this is what happens. I’d never been on another team.”

Unaccustomed to exposing her body even to friends, C lost her shirt in the game, and worried about having to remove her shorts too.

“I wasn’t planning to strip when I came to basketball practice,” she said.

The fourth witness opted to remove her bra from under her shirt. At the time, “I just sort of wrote it off as some stupid jock thing.”

None of the witnesses told their parents about Strip 21 — the sisters because they feared they’d be forbidden from playing basketball.

As a devoted player and the team captain, A had a close relationship with Cain.

As a result, while her parents travelled to Saskatoon for her brother’s frequent medical appointments, A stayed with a trusted adult: Cain.

She had close to 20 sleepovers at Cain’s house during her time on the team, sleeping in Cain’s bed rather than the floor. There was no couch.

It “shocked” A’s mother to learn they shared a bed.

“They were not peers. Martina was a teacher, a person of authority in (A’s) life, and (A) was a teenager.”

During the sleepovers, they would hang out and cook supper. There was no drinking or drug use.

They wore pyjamas to bed, where nothing sexual occurred and they didn’t touch, though A said neither was “clinging to the other side of the bed and wanting to fall off.”

“It was a friendship, that’s what it seemed like. … It was very confusing when I look back,” said A, who realized in 2007 she is gay.

In another instance, A said Cain instructed her to remove her bathing suit as they shared a hot tub at a friend’s house. A third woman was present, said A; both she and Cain were nude. A was in Grade 10 or 11 at the time.

“It was awkward, but they made it seem like it was just normal,” said A.

A also alleges Cain told her to steal a tray from A&W during a basketball road trip. A recalls “being in shock that I had stole.”

The four charges against Cain are contrary to the Registered Teachers Act in being “harmful to the best interests of students or other members of the public,” harmful to “the standing of the profession,” and “a breach of this Act or the bylaws.”

The allegations are also contrary to a regulatory bylaw, as “conduct which is harmful to the best interest of pupils or affects the ability of a teacher to teach,” and “an act … regarded by the profession as disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional.”

If the discipline committee finds Cain guilty, her teaching certificate may be cancelled or suspended, or she may be able to practise teaching under specific criteria, including refraining from specific types of work or obtaining counselling. She may be fined up to $5,000.